Taxpayers must be growing one the way some councillors spend

By SUE-ANN LEVY

The spendaholics on city council are a predictable bunch,
indeed.

Little wonder they fought so hard during the March budget
deliberations to keep their fat $53,100 office budgets
intact.

Or that most of council, led by Howard Moscoe, voted in
April to extend the date when they must stop using city money to promote
themselves - in newsletters and press releases - from Aug. 1 to Sept. 25,
one day before nominations close for the Nov. 10 civic election. (I can
hardly wait to see the flood of fancy newsletters packed with their pictures
as they press the flesh with ever-so-grateful constituents.)

Every penny and every minute is important in a year when there are
voters to be wooed - at taxpayers' expense, of course. Because the
election is Nov. 10, councillors can only spend $48,675 up to that point. If
they win, they get the rest of the $53,100 for expenses to the end of the
year.

A list of office expenditures to the end of June 30, released yesterday,
shows Coun. Sherene Shaw as top spender. She has already spent
$41,042 of her budget in the first six months of this year.

Shaw, who spent $20,997 jetting around the world last year, faces a
formidable opponent in November - Mike Del Grande, an accountant,
former chairman of the Toronto Catholic school board and the kind of
fiscal conservative this council needs. She couldn't be reached for
comment yesterday on where her expense money went.

Coun. Raymond Cho, who came in a close second at $36,401, also
couldn't be reached. But both Cho and Shaw are on record as supporting
the Aug. 1 deadline extension, allowing them to use their office budgets to
communicate with constituents until six weeks prior to the election.

Board of health chairman Joe Mihevc, who voted to keep the office
budgets intact, has spent $33,633. His executive assistant, Sean Hill, told
me that was primarily for rent on a community office, which costs $25,000
per year.

By my calculations, that's only $12,500 for six months, leaving slightly
more than $21,000 on other stuff.

Supposedly frugal Mike Tziretas, who, as a member of the budget
committee, helped kill a move by administration committee to cut
councillors' budgets to $45,000 a year, spent $29,731 in the first six
months of this year.

His executive assistant, David Anderson, says the majority was put toward
"communications" regarding tenants and seniors, as well as seniors'
seminars.

"We've done a lot of communications," he said.

But asked how much of that was to promote Tziretas, who is facing a
tough fight against lefty Janet Davis in November, Anderson stressed: "We
can't use any of that to get Mike re-elected."

Doug Holyday, who has spent a measly $903 to date on the usual office
items like his cellphone, photocopying and postage, takes a cynical view
of the whole issue. He says office spending, while within the law, always
goes up in a election year.

"The tougher the fight, the more councillors want to spend money
promoting themselves," says Holyday, who feels $5,000 would be "more
than enough" to cover councillors' office expenses.

"Council has opened the floodgates (with these budgets) and allowed the
system to be abused."

Coun. Frances Nunziata, almost as frugal as Holyday at just $915 spent,
has tried several times, without success, to get councillors to cut their
office budgets to $35,000.

"Some councillors are on a power trip," said Nunziata, who meets
constituents wherever is convenient for them. "You can do your job right
and still be accessible without having to spend a lot of money."

Penny-pinching Rob Ford, whose obsession with trying to pare council's
perks is well-known, has, as usual, only spent $5 so far this year - on
photocopying and "a few stamps."

Despite demands from some of his colleagues last October ordering him
to use his office budget, Ford acknowledges he's still spending some of
his own money on supplies.

"We live in a democratic country and people are allowed to spend their
money as they wish," he told me yesterday.

He's already spoken to some of the mayoral candidates - John Nunziata
and John Tory - about curtailing some of council's freebies.

Says Ford: "I won't stop trying."